Excerpt

He pivoted and ducked at the girl's shout. The swift move was
barely fast enough to dodge the downward arc of the cutlass that
had been meant to take off his head.

"Damn!" he cursed as he jumped away from another
wild swing.

Hell of a bad day to lead a boarding party onto the deck of a
Malay war junk, he thought as he had to deal with both the
swordsman in front of him and the pitching deck under his bare
feet. There weren't many of the Malay crew left, but the ones
still alive were fanatical fighters. With a typhoon blowing in,
he didn't have time for fanatics. He wanted to finish the raid
and get out.

"The prize had damn well better be worth the trouble!"
he shouted. He backed across the pitching deck as the man continued
to slash at him with the biggest blade he'd ever seen. If his
pistol hadn't been knocked out of his hand a few moments before
he could have easily dispatched this primitive attacker.

When he reached the stack of three iron cages lashed to the
deck on the junk's prow he scrambled on top of them. All but one
was empty. "Slave trade must be slow," he commented.
He balanced like an acrobat as he ran along the length of the
cages. He barely had time for a passing glance down at the girl
whose shout had saved his life. It was only when he caught a glimpse
of fair hair and pale skin that he remembered that her words had
been in English. He grinned, realizing just what cargo the Malay
fighters were protecting. He was laughing as he jumped, feet slamming
into the swordsman's chest. The Malay dropped the oversized blade
as he fell.

He snatched it off the deck and brought it down across the
Malay's thick neck. Then he swiveled and brought the sword down
as hard as he could on the cage's lock. The blade shattered, but
so did the rusty old lock.

His men gathered around as he pulled the girl out for a closer
look.

"Thank you!" she said.

"Don't."

Their gazes met, locked, then she looked away, her cheeks bright
red. He knew what she'd seen in his eyes. After a long moment
she laughed, the tone musical, as clear and sharp as the salt
wind that caught the sound and blew it out to sea. It was a brave
laugh, slightly mad, defiant, yet reflecting the fear he'd seen
in her blue eyes. Beautiful eyes set in a perfect oval face. It
had been a long time since he'd seen a blue-eyed woman. Longer
still since he'd had one.

He moved closer as he touched her cheek. He breathed in the
scent of her as he ran his thumb across the ugly blue-green bruise
that marked where someone had hit her. Her skin was warm, soft,
only a fool would mar it. He wanted to touch it, taste it everywhere,
possess it.

"You're not here to rescue me, are you?"

"No."

She laughed again. The bright, bitter sound enchanted him.
This was not a weak, hysterical spirit. There was nothing fragile
to her beauty despite the exquisite perfection of form and face.
She laughed in hell, and that made her priceless to him.

He ran his fingers through her hair."The price
of innocence," he said, "is what someone is willing
to pay to destroy it."

In and of itself, the woman's bright laughter was an almost ordinary
sound. Its timbre was neither shrill nor forced; a genuine, unaffected
expression of amusement at some clever bit of conversation. It
was pleasant, rather infectious.

Malaria was infectious as well, Jack remembered, and it could
send the same chill heat quivering through one.

He saw exactly who he expected to see when she turned their way,
a tall, slender girl - no, not a girl - a woman. Her golden hair
did not tumble wantonly around her lovely face. Her hair was arranged
in a fashionable coif, but it was the same wheat honey amber color
he remembered. She was not wearing a clinging silk robe with absolutely
nothing on underneath, but an elaborate evening gown of stiff,
shimmering black. The dark material served to outline every lush
curve just the same, and to accent the flawless paleness of her
skin. She was still perfect. She was still - Scheherazade.

Jack just barely managed not to say the name aloud. He just barely
managed to catch hold of the facts that he was in a London ballroom,
that the year was 1887, that if she saw him she'd scream, possibly
faint, certainly denounce him as the fraud and villain he truly
was. He wanted nothing more than to back away, to run for the
door.

Instead, Lady Anne's arm tightened around his as she sensed his
hesitation. He was totally helpless, totally detached from his
body as she drew him to the woman. He felt as though he were floating
toward his executioner and there was nothing he could do to stop
it. When he saw the necklace, he stopped breathing.

He was damned, he knew it, but there was nothing he could do but
watch and listen as Lady Anne spoke.

"Sherrie, my dear, this is Lord St. John PenMartyn, Earl
of PenMartyn. We call him Jack."

Sherrie said, "Hello," before she actually looked at
Jack PenMartyn.

When she looked at him her attention was instantly riveted on
the masculine figure who stood so still and intensely silent before
her. She did not actually notice the details of his appearance,
it was the dark aura that radiated from him that riveted her attention.
Her first impression was that a tiger had walked into the room
and she was the only one who recognized the danger. She had an
unfortunate habit of being drawn to danger.

"I shot a tiger once, in India," she heard herself say.
"It was a mankiller. There was no other choice."

It was an odd and inane way of introducing herself to this stranger.
She reminded herself to curb her too-active imagination. She didn't
blame him when he took an abrupt step back. Only when he moved,
swift and graceful, did she actually see the man. Tall, solidly
made, with a strong throat and broad shoulders. His hair was blue
black, his face as handsome as sin, his mouth wide and full and
sensuous. She almost took a step toward him, her body obediently
following his without any conscious volition. A response she hadn't
felt in years kindled in her at the sight of him, until she saw
the ice cold blueness of his eyes.

It would never do to scream in the middle of Lady Anne's ball.

She'd given up screaming years ago, anyway. If there was one thing
she could manage, it was her aversion to blue-eyed men. Fortunately,
though the world was full of blue-eyed men, there were very few
with the exact glacial shade of the man -- the unknown man --
before her.

She was able to stop the heart-jolting response to the stranger's
familiar eyes before it had a chance to disturb her hard-won poise.
This wasn't the first time this foolish response had tried to
overwhelm her. She merely had to get past surface similarities,
be briefly polite to the newcomer, then make her escape with the
excuse that Lord Summers had asked her to dance.

Sherrie pretended she hadn't already spoken, and held out her
hand. It wouldn't have dared to do anything so cowardly as shake.
"Always happy to meet any friend of yours, Annie."

She was able, with more trouble than she wanted to admit, to force
her initial image of the earl to the back of her mind. There were
no tigers in the room, unless her imagination had conjured one
out of memory and whole cloth. This earl was really just another
mild-mannered aristocrat. He was probably one of the single gentlemen
Lady Anne had promised Aunt Dora she'd trot out for inspection,
even if she had to invade the gentlemen's smoking room. The poor
fellow probably wanted to get the mandatory introduction to the
rich American over with and get back to his brandy and masculine
conversation as quickly as possible. She didn't blame him.

And for all the supposition she made up about the thoughts and
history of the Earl of PenMartyn, she was desperately glad that
they weren't alone. She was delighted that her hands were covered
with white silk gloves, for if he touched her in any way, even
if only to perfunctorily brush his lips across the back of her
bare hand, she would know. And she did not want to know.

Though, of course, there was nothing to know.

At least he doesn't smell of cigars, she thought, dragging
her mind down a sane and sensible path. Aunt Dora would never
approve of a man who smoked for one of her girls. Judging his
attributes with thoughts of matrimony for her cousins in mind,
rather than the overactive prejudice of her imagination, she decided
that she liked his height, the cut of his clothing and the width
of his shoulders. She especially liked the width of his shoulders,
because they definitely had more breadth to them than those of
the man she knew he could not be.

Faith and Daisy are tall girls, she thought. It won't
do to introduce them to the runts of any English litter, titled
or not.

There was a fleck or two of gray in his thick black hair, making
it not quite so blue-black as she'd initially thought. She didn't
suppose the girls would like that, but she found it distinguished.

His eyes, however, she continued to find disturbing. She didn't
risk looking into them for more than an instant. This foolish
reaction was entirely her own fault. If she had thought about
it, she would have recalled that Britain was full of men with
the Celtic ancestry that bred pale skins, light blue eyes and
silky black hair. The knowledge wouldn't have stopped her from
coming to England, but she would have been more prepared than
to have such a shocked reaction to the Earl of-

"PenMartyn," she said as she recalled the title. She
still held her hand out, waiting for the requisite chaste brush
of lips across her gloved knuckles. He didn't seem to notice.
"Is that Welsh?" Please, God, don't let him be Irish.
Not that her Irishman had been an Earl. So, of course, it didn't
matter where this Earl of PenMartyn was from.

"Cornish," Lady Anne said, after the silence drew out
to an uncomfortable length.

Sherrie didn't know where to go from here. The man was clearly
not interested in talking to her. In fact, he was barely looking
at her. He stood there, large, imposing, expressionless, and statue
still. His gaze was fixed somewhere below her chin, though she
didn't think he was ogling her bosom despite there being quite
a bit of it exposed by the cut of her gown.

When she finally realized what he was looking at, she touched
the necklace clasped around her throat. "The six strands
of white pearls are perfectly matched. The baroque black pearl
in the center is quite rare," she said as she ran a fingertip
over the smooth undulations of the irregularly shaped gem. She
had given this description a few times before. "The setting
of the black pearl is carved from white jade. It depicts a tiger
and a dragon. They are traditionally shown battling each other
for the pearl of wisdom - which is not generally depicted as a
black lump of oyster spit," she added as the Earl continued
to stare.

She saw her rude comment and tart tone finally bring Jack PenMartyn
out of his daze. A daze she'd probably caused with her initial
odd comment about tiger killing. He must think her a very odd
American duck. He laughed. Actually it was more of a faint, rasping
chuckle. It gave her the impression that he wasn't used to laughing.
Which was a shame, since amusement served to make his already
handsome features even better looking.

She didn't often take much interest in men's looks, but with Jack
PenMartyn it was hard not to make an exception. When he took her
hand and turned it so that his lips brushed not across her knuckles,
but kissed softly in the exact center of her gloved palm, her
knees went weak. That flesh did not actually touch flesh didn't
prevent the searing reaction that shot through her. She could
do nothing but stare, transfixed as he stepped very close to her.
Despite their color, there was nothing cold about the look in
his eyes. She wasn't sure whether she was ready to flee, or rush
into Cullum's embrace.

No. No. No.

They'd never met. She'd had this hallucination before. She was
having the dreams too often, and they were invading her waking
hours.

Fortunately, Lady Anne was there to remind them that they were
hardly alone. The hostess's voice was full of forced cheerfulness
as she filled in the charged silence around them. "As I mentioned
earlier, Jack, dear, Mrs. Hamilton is a widow, but I don't think
I told you about her adventures. She travels all over the world.
She's been to India, and journeyed as far as Tibet."

He was glad she was a widow. It saved him the trouble of having
to kill any man who dared touch her.

The thought brought him up short, and back to sanity.

His reaction, after all these years to Scheherazade VanHarlen
-- Hamilton -- was a humbling experience for a man who took pride
in his self-restraint. That she didn't recognize him should have
been a relief. Instead, he was infuriated to the point that he
was barely able to keep from stirring her memory in the most direct,
carnal way possible.

He'd walked into a trap.

The demon that lived inside him laughed. Jack was just barely
able to keep the civilized mask in place, to take one step away
from Scheherazade, then another. He won the battle to keep his
voice polite and calm when he spoke. He knew the polished, precise
tone was nothing like the rough Irish-accented growl Scheherazade
would remember. "My apologies, and deepest regrets, ladies,
but you will have to excuse me. I can't stay. I'm not feeling
at all myself at the moment."

The truth was, he was feeling more like himself than he had in
years. No one here but Scheherazade knew just how dangerous his
real self could be. He couldn't say another word, make another
polite gesture. All he could do was manage not to flee in heedless,
headlong panic when he walked from the room.